


I've Turned Down Every Hand That Has Beckoned Me to Come

by IfItHollers



Series: Just About Starving [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Ben Hanscom Has Body Image Issues, Ben Hanscom doesn't need to lose all the weight to deserve love, Blood Drinking, Edging, Emotion Eating, Empathy, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Extrasensory Perception, F/M, Femdom, Human/Vampire Relationship, Light Dom/sub, Nipple Licking, Past Abuse, Past Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Riding, Vampire Beverly, Vampires, Woman on Top, background Stanley Uris/Patricia Blum, discussed Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom/Bill Denbrough, discussed Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom/Mike Hanlon, discussion of low empathy, grownups drinking wine, low empathy, mid 20s Losers, our vampires are different, the conscious choice to do good and be kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfItHollers/pseuds/IfItHollers
Summary: Eddie asks Bev a question. But being a vampire isn't easy, even when you go into it fully informed. But Bev will do whatever she has to to make her boys feel safe, no matter what.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Eddie Kaspbrak
Series: Just About Starving [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050854
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	I've Turned Down Every Hand That Has Beckoned Me to Come

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Title is from Mitski's "Geyser," which is something that didn't occur to me until it came up on shuffle while I was working on this, which is so convenient because I was searching Monsterhearts character sheets for good quotes and this is much better than "marked for the hunt."
> 
> This is an urban fantasy series that focuses around some non-human Losers (more details later) and Eddie's choice to become a vampire. Pairings are established Ben/Beverly, past Bill/Bev, established Stan/Patty, eventual Eddie/Richie and Bill/Mike. Please heed the content warnings for each installment; this is mostly an excuse to write characterization-heavy smut.
> 
> Other items to note: in this 'verse, vampires feed literally off of blood, but also off of emotions--like the mechanic in Monsterhearts where vampires gain strings on people by sexually denying them. Bev derives sustenance from upsetting people (courtesy of It's influence on her), and she has to consciously choose to be kind to her friends. Some of her previous relationships (not Ben or Bill!) were abusive, though Bev is now physically invulnerable to humans, very strong, and very capable of harming others. She perceives emotional responses in others in a way that is frequently associated with either smell or hunger, and can be seen as a light form of telepathy.
> 
> Also: Ben and Beverly have sex with light dom/sub dynamics. They do not use safewords. This is because their safeword is "no," or "wait, slow down," or "hang on," because in order to safely have sex with Ben, Bev needs to be paying constant attention to his comfort, his enthusiasm, and his safety, because she is much physically stronger than him and she's perfectly capable of enjoying causing him genuine distress, so she watches herself for that very carefully. As a result, Bev can't really have vanilla sex. I think this scene is very mild--some light bossiness, some gentle edging, Ben takes implied orders and begs a little, Bev provides aftercare--but since they're established there isn't a lot of negotiation seen in this fic, and if any of that sounds like it might upset you, please exercise your best judgment and hit that back button. I promise I won't be upset.
> 
> And: Bev's experience of low empathy is not meant to reflect on or be analogous to any real life experiences--she was turned by It, and so her experience as a vampire is somewhat singular and Its negative influence lingers in her. But Ben's thoughts about being a good person versus doing good things are, I think, comforting for anyone who worries that they don't "feel correctly," myself included.

After their most recent Losers Club meeting—this time drinking wine in Ben’s apartment—Eddie lingers. This isn’t unheard of. Eddie can almost always be counted on for a ride home, no matter who asks; he’s always the first to volunteer to be designated driver. There was a time that Bev had to take advantage of that a lot. Even now, years later, her birthday and holiday gifts to him are always gas station gift cards and money.

The glass of wine in Eddie’s hand is maybe his second. He doesn’t smell drunk; if he declared he were going home now, Bev wouldn’t worry about him driving. But Ben is perpetually hospitable no matter how tired he is, and he will never kick a friend out of his place. Bev has to keep an eye on him and make sure that he’s doing okay so he can get some rest.

She’s considering calling Ben over so she can put her head in his lap and have him play with her hair, when Eddie finally asks the question that’s been sitting on his tongue this whole time.

“Is it… better?”

His eyes flicker up to hers and then immediately to the glass in his hand, as though there’s any way to make the question casual.

For a moment Bev thinks he’s asking about Ben, and yes, Ben is better than any man she’s dated before. That can’t even be a real question—Eddie _knows_ Ben is too good for her, too sweet, too cooperative. Ben wants what she wants, no matter what it is; so Bev keeps an eye out for that too. She’s not looking to break him.

And then she realizes that the tightness in Eddie’s already-thin mouth is anxiety. The astringency coming off of him isn’t the smell of wine, it’s the smell of camphor peculiar to him when he’s nervous. He’s been stewing on it a while.

The Losers have had conversations like that about her boyfriends more than once. Bill was her first boyfriend, her high school boyfriend, so it was easier to brush off his concerns as jealousy or lingering feelings; Stan was the first one to take her out for a drink and tell her that if she ever needed anything, anything at all—a place to stay, a ride in the middle of the night, help opening a bank account her boyfriend didn’t know about—he would do it. She almost laughed, but the sincerity on him was subtle—sugary, reminding her of ice cream, hard to detect in the bar.

She went to Stan the night she broke her boyfriend’s hand. His girlfriend—his fiancée now—was staying the night, and Patty made up the couch with sheets and everything and brought her one of the pillows from Stan’s bed and asked her if there was anything else she needed; and Bev, astonished by herself, asked if she could have a hug. She wanted Kay in that moment, but Kay was far away in Chicago, and Patty’s bright _of course!_ and soft arms felt good and familiar in a way she wasn’t used to.

Eddie was subtle in his distaste for her boyfriends. Frequently they were dismissive of her many friends who were men, or suspicious; she’s never had a boyfriend who didn’t hate Bill or Ben almost on sight. Richie was particularly bad for provoking them—the way he is about almost everyone—but Eddie turned compliant and quiet in a way that made all of the Losers anxious, and he just kept looking at Bev to see if his responses were okay, if he was making trouble for her. Humid smells came off him, sugar and breading on chicken nuggets and the watery smell of green beans out of a TV dinner.

Seeing Eddie bite back his tongue always makes Richie more furious and more cutting, and there was one occasion where he and the guy almost came to blows before the guy stormed off, dragging Bev with him, and tried to forbid her from seeing Richie again. That was an easy line to draw. She always wanted her boys more than she wanted any of the boyfriends. They broke up that night, and for a moment she thought he might swing at her, but instead he turned and slammed his hand into the wall so hard that one of her framed prints dropped from the hook and broke. Ben put the wooden pieces back together the next time she hosted.

Eddie doesn’t smell hot and damp and stressed now; he smells like camphor, which means that he’s asking not about her but about himself. It’s something that Eddie is invested in personally.

“Better than what?” she asks.

She didn’t choose to turn. Immediately afterwards, she was so confused by everything—the alien sense of power she felt flowing toward her from the boys who came to rescue her; the sewer stench so strong it seemed to grab hold of her stomach, her throat, her sinuses; and despite her nausea, a profound _hunger_ unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Eventually it became a blessing, a new way of life that made her previous problems not insignificant, but just laughable. But until she understood what she was now and learned how to manage it, it felt like being handed a loaded gun without the safety.

She and Eddie have certain things in common. There was that college girlfriend of his that none of them liked, but who hated Bev specifically. Bev used to laugh when she sniped at her; and Eddie glanced at her with something sharp in his eyes. It wasn’t _please don’t make trouble for me_. For too long Bev has known what it means when a man looks at her and _wants_ something, but Eddie never looks at her to possess her. It was just a flash of envy that he smothered almost immediately, turning back to whoever was speaking.

It’s something of a relief that he finally spoke up.

Eddie’s mouth is stained a little dark from the red wine, and two corners of a crescent stand up from his lip. He doesn’t look her in the eye for this, but swirls what little wine he has left around in the well of the glass, watching it melt from translucence back to opacity.

“You started saying _no_ so much after,” he says. “Not—” He looks up, camphor coming off him, black licorice and menthol, worried that she’ll misunderstand him and be insulted. “Not like that’s a _bad_ thing, I’m not saying that, but—did it make it easier?”

From the kitchen she can hear Ben filling the sink to wash dishes. She should get up and go help him with that, but Eddie is sitting here wanting _something_ from her and that’s hard to walk away from. The girl who loved him for wading into the water during the Apocalyptic Rock War wants to give him what he’s looking for; the monster that woke up in the sewers wants to deny him to taste his disappointment. And that means that Bev has no choice but to be honest and as objective as she can be, so that Eddie can make his own decisions.

If this goes on for too long, she’ll tell Ben to wait before cleaning up. If she doesn’t help him, he will do all of the work himself without question.

The boys knew her for such a short period of time before she turned. It was maybe a few weeks; she can’t remember much in that window where Eddie would have had time to see her want to say _no_ and say _yes_ instead. But she remembers how things changed, clearly divided into before and after the turn. Maybe something replaced her old uncontrollable hot anger, the one that reminds her of Alvin Marsh.

Once, she and Eddie and Ben were pitching pennies with some other insignificant little kid in downtown Derry. And the kid got mad that she beat him and told her that her mother was a whore. And instead of reaching out and hitting him—the way that Bev would be tempted to do now—she burst into tears. Not because of that little shitstain, but because it made her think of her _father_ , and that profound _fear_ building up in their house like a cloud, like a _smell_.

The fear went away after the sewer. It was replaced by something cold, something annoyed with him for infringing on her safety, but nothing profound and all-consuming the way it used to be. The fear went away because she ate it up, peeling up the baseboards in her room and catching wisps of it. She cannibalized the emotions that she left after years of living in the apartment, and when she’d picked that bone clean, she turned her gaze to her father and waited.

“Yes,” she tells Eddie. “It got easier.”

It was so much easier to say _no_ when she knew what people wanted from her and she knew that she _could_ say no, that no one could force her to comply, that it mattered what she chose to do. She could sense their frustration and she wanted to stoke it higher, and she didn’t care that, for many grown men, not getting what they wanted out of a thirteen-year-old girl was an affront that blossomed frustration into anger. She smiled as she denied them, and that incensed them further, and she wasn’t _afraid_ anymore. Nobody was a threat to her. Nobody could hurt her, and so she could do whatever she wanted.

The _want_ coming off of Eddie is abstract and wispy and frustrated, colored by self-disgust and guilt. He swirls the wine in his glass one more time and then drains it.

“Sorry,” he says when he sets it down on the coaster. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

She interrupts him. “Ben,” she says, raising her voice so that Ben can hear her in the next room over the running faucet.

The water cuts off and he asks, “Did you say something?”

“Yes,” she says. “Leave the dishes to soak. Come out here with us.”

Ben steps out of the kitchen with a dishtowel in hand, wiping his fingers dry. He smells _content_ , which on him is all chocolate, and will linger on him a little while longer while he processes how happy he is to have brought all of his friends into his home. He’s even delighted that Eddie is still here. The sweet warmth of his happiness makes sense—it reminds Bev of s’mores around a campfire. They had fires a lot in high school, Stan diligently browning marshmallows on the end of his skewer, Ben deliberately catching his and then blowing them out just as quickly, happy to fold them between graham crackers for anyone who wanted one but didn’t want to do the work themselves. Bev asked him to toast her one properly, just to see if he would do it, and he did. The way he hunched his shoulders as he leaned forward and braced his skewer on his knees, the look of utter concentration on his face, for some reason made Bev feel very odd about how close she was sitting to Bill.

Ben nods at the empty glass in Eddie’s hand. “Want more?”

“No,” Eddie says quickly, pulses of camphor strain going through him. He’s worried about imposing; he never stays this late. A faint edge of motor oil rolls through him the way it does when he thinks of cars—maybe he means to offer Bev a ride home so they can continue the conversation; maybe he’s just thinking of making a quick getaway. “I’d better not,” he adds. “I need to get going soon.”

If he wants to go, he can go. Bev lifts her head to look at Ben and says, “Come sit with me.”

Ben’s a little bit of a hedonist at heart. He likes good bourbon, direct flights, fine leather. They don’t have much money right now, but that means that he clings to the things that he likes, trying to make them last as long as possible. She can tell when he’s been thinking about them. If Bev tells him that she likes how he looks in a certain jacket, he wears it more often. She likes being able to give him that; and the fact that he never _asks_ for it makes it easier.

He comes and sits behind her on the couch—Bev crunches up to make room for him behind her head—so she can put her head on his thigh. She needs a haircut; it grows so much faster now that she’s eating well.

Ben’s hand hovers over her head and he asks, “Do you mind if—?”

“Go right ahead,” she tells him.

His fingers sink into her hair and comb it out. Bev feels petted. If she were a cat, maybe she’d purr.

Eddie flushes a little, envy coming off of him again. Bev can’t tell if it’s because he wants Ben—she gets flashes of that sometimes, when Richie or Eddie or sometimes even Bill look at him, and she’s pretty sure that’s what it is, though it’s easier to detect on Bill because she knows what arousal smells like on him—or because their display of casual intimacy makes him uncomfortable.

She shuffles backwards just a little on the couch, her ear coming up against Ben’s hip crease. His denim jeans are worn with use, and they smell like him—both in her nose and in that hunger-sense the change gave her. Her nose finds salt from his sweat and warmth from his body; in the back of her throat she can feel his fluttery satisfaction from pulling on his favorite pair of jeans and how comfortably they fit.

“Eddie,” she says. “Do you want to come sit with us?”

Eddie freezes. The flush leaps higher into his cheeks, buoyed by his wine. There’s a little pulse of surprise from Ben, but it’s not unpleasant. Now that he understands, he doesn’t mind her making room for their friend.

“I—that’s all right,” Eddie demurs. “I should get going soon anyway, I have to—”

“Eddie,” Bev says.

He falls silent when she speaks. The camphor smell is stronger now, cloying in the back of her throat. She knows that he just refused, polite as his explanation and excuse was, but she doesn’t know if _he_ knows that he just said no. He’s perfectly capable, and Bev loves him, and she will listen to him.

“That’s completely fine,” she tells him. He relaxes a little. “You don’t have to worry about us being disappointed, or angry, or frustrated. But—if someone asked me, and I said no.”

She takes a lot of pleasure in saying _No_ without explanation or gentleness, precisely for the sharp slap of offense that some people take from it. She tries not to do it with the Losers, but when she does, they’re all accustomed by now to reeling and recovering from the unexpected refusal, and then they look at her pleased little smile and laugh.

“And if they did get mad, or they did push,” she explains. “I’d keep saying no. No matter how mad they got. Because it feels good. That’s the difference.”

A musty smell rolls through him, that humid stink—she’s pretty sure it’s guilt. It’s easier to guess because she knows Eddie.

“Does it—do you care less?” he asks. ”It doesn’t matter if they feel bad? Not that I’m…” The corners of his mouth press down in unhappiness, checking himself again for fear of offending Bev.

“No, I don’t care,” she says. “I have to remind myself to care.”

One of the reasons she and Bill don’t date anymore is because she _loved_ making him angry when they were together in high school. It felt fantastic; it scaled all the way down her throat in a way that, years later, she found she could reproduce with Fireball whiskey. Sometimes it felt so good that it was hard to remind herself that she cared about him, even if the way that she thought she cared about him was changing and she knew she was going to disappoint him in the long run. Eventually she admitted to herself that she was provoking him in the hopes that he would end things, and she just steeled herself and did it on her own instead of waiting for him.

Sometimes she thinks that turning made her more callous, and that’s something she _should_ feel bad about, but she doesn’t. A lot of her moral compass has become less instinctive—the empathy that little girls are supposed to have towards the whole world has faded—and more of a conscious choice. She loves her friends, and so she will be gentle with them. She loves Ben, and so she will look out for him.

Even with people she loves, she has to remind herself that she wants them to feel good too. She has to be constantly vigilant; she is a hungry thing and she has to stop herself from eating Ben up until there’s nothing left of him, and she doesn’t know whether that comes from It in the dark or from Alvin Marsh—whether it’s something that was done to her or something that was always part of her design, from the first day.

Eddie swallows. “Is that—you’re okay with that?” There’s a little bit of judgment in the question, as hard as he tries to stifle it.

She frowns a little, despite Ben’s soothing touch. “Does it matter if I’m okay with it?” she asks. “It’s what I’ve got.”

Eddie’s lingering scents flatten out as he struggles to comprehend what she’s telling him, and then he veers away from the topic entirely. “It really is late,” he says. “Let me help you with the dishes.”

Bev lets it go, and she gets up to wash dishes too. They all stand at the sink, shoulder to shoulder in the little kitchen, the smell of soap high in the room. Then Eddie says his goodbyes, nervously hugs them both, and leaves.

As the door closes behind him, Ben’s head tips back a little as though in relief, his eyes closing. Bev likes to see the way his face smooths out—his eyelids serene, his mouth pleased. Ben loves his friends, but he’s still an introvert deep down. He likes hosting, but it takes a toll on him.

“Should I go?” she asks. She has her own place, but she tends to stay over on nights like this. She doesn’t have work until tomorrow afternoon anyway.

A little pulse of unhappiness goes through Ben. It smells like mold on him. His eyes open. His tone is placid and unbothered when he says, “If you want to.”

As if she can’t tell that he wants her to stay.

“Or we can cuddle on the couch,” she suggests.

Ben smiles a little, something rueful about it. “Or we can do that.”

He lies on his back and she climbs on top of him, leaning her weight into his left side and the back of the couch. She doesn’t seem to weigh any more than any other woman her size, but she’s strong enough that if she isn’t careful, she could really hurt Ben. She’s learned how to manage it over the years—that college boyfriend who swung out a hand to break her nose got a nasty shock when Bev didn’t break, but his hand did—but it’s reassuring that Ben is solidly built, his body easily keeping protective fat. It makes him comfortable to lay on, and she’s less likely to accidentally knee him and damage his liver or something.

She settles down on him and rests her forehead on his shoulder. They just breathe together for a few moments, settling with each other. Ben is warm, and he smells like dead grass drying under the sun—smells she associates with long summer days spent out playing in the Barrens. She tucks her face into the crook of his neck and breathes deep. Salt and light sweat and his body wash and shampoo where it ran down his neck. Under her cheek she can find a few odd bumps from where he shaved and his stubble is growing back in. He smells _alive_. He smells _content_. He’s delicious.

“Did I do okay?” Ben asks after some time. He needs that assurance every now and then—as if their friends would ever complain about his behavior, and even if they did, as if they would have room to talk when it came to being weird or socially awkward.

“Of course,” she replies.

He startles a little when she speaks—her lips on his throat must tickle. She feels him swallow.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

She can’t decide. Talking about it with Eddie has put her off a little bit, but Ben lying here and being appealing will probably put her back in the mood. She watched the guys idly snack on chips and salsa all night. Sometimes just the availability gets her hungry.

She digs her knee into the couch cushion and scoots lower so she can lie with her head on Ben’s chest. His hands loop around the small of her back, holding her loosely and comfortably.

She waits for him to settle a little more before she asks, “Do you think I’m a terrible person?”

Ben likes to talk about feelings—or, rather, he always listens and he has good insight when he does decide to speak. He doesn’t like to talk about their friends behind their backs, but he used to hang around Mike a lot in high school when his dad was sick, making himself available in case Mike needed anything. Sometimes he’ll say _I’m worried about Richie_ or _I wonder how Stan and Patty are doing_ and they’ll talk about how funny it is to see Stan in love, or Bev will arrange to take Richie out somewhere and get a sense of how he’s feeling after the moon.

Since they’ve started dating, they’ve talked about what they need from each other. Bev needed those specific parameters to make sure Ben was safe, and they have rules, and she tried to make Ben understand why it is that she sometimes needs to deny him things, that sometimes that’s the only thing that can scratch the itch. She wants to be mean, sometimes, but she doesn’t want to be cruel. She might want to hurt Ben a little, but she doesn’t want to harm him.

And Ben, in turn, tried to articulate his thoughts about safety and comfort and what it means to take care of people versus being taken care of. He brought her home to meet his mother and aunt and his mom cooked dinner, and Bev smelled the satisfied smells coming off of Arlene as she watched her son and his girlfriend eat some truly inspired ratatouille and thought she might understand a bit. Ben’s aunt clearly wanted to take some shots at Ben, and Bev delighted in telling her how wonderful Ben was, so considerate, truly the best boyfriend she’s ever had, what an amazing man—and making Arlene glow with pride and the aunt pulse with irritation. Ben blushed throughout the whole evening and had to pull over in the car on the ride home so that she could drive and he could cover his face with his hands.

But it’s the first time she’s asked him so bluntly about her sort of makeup. Her composition, her pattern, the words to describe what she is. And it’s obviously a bad question—it’s certainly not the kind of question that Ben will ever say _yes, you are terrible_ to—but it’s a confession as well. _Sometimes I think I’m a terrible person. Please help me._

“Of course not,” Ben replies, as expected.

She tries to focus on her feelings and not on Eddie’s, because Ben will be typically close-mouthed if she asks him to speculate on why Eddie asked her at last.

“He wanted to know if it got easier to say no,” she says. And she has all kinds of thoughts about why he’d want to know that, and what he might have been hoping for her to say, but she keeps those to herself. “And—I guess it did. But it’s not… Turning didn’t make me stronger, emotionally.”

She’s always hated that saying— _what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger_. Sometimes it just breaks you. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. Sometimes all it leaves you with are broken pieces, and you have to decide what to do with them, if anything. Some people are very good at creating something out of scraps and smashed tiles and passed-over pieces; and some people prefer to try to repair something in the hopes it can go back to the way it was; and in that, remaking yourself is just like everything else in the world. Some people have a natural talent; some people have a finely-honed skill; some people get lucky; some people never succeed. They can go on, or they don’t. But it’s not about the thing that didn’t kill you. The thing that tried to kill you and failed. It’s about the person.

She doesn’t think she became stronger, anyway. The Bev she was on the day she was turned— _was_ turned, because it was something done to her, not something she chose or did, and so Eddie’s experience can never be hers, because she will not allow him to feel that helpless—went home for lunch after a morning of playing with her friends and was confronted by her enraged father, and ran from him. Bev doesn’t think that girl was weak. She thinks she was wide open, ready to love the father who taught her to tie her shoes, ready to risk the monster that chased her into the road if it meant getting some of that good old guy back. That was strength. It was a little sad, she thinks, but it was harder than anything Bev’s had to deal with since.

But the assertion that turning didn’t make her stronger means defining _strength_ , doesn’t it? The things that Bev, after, had to contend with were actual threats; Alvin Marsh stopped being one of those. She learned that she was strong enough that she broke her door off the hinges just by trying to close it; and when her father saw it and punched her in the side of the head, she felt no more affronted by it than if a beach ball had bounced off of her. She learned that the profound joy she felt at the knowledge that Bill Denbrough loved her was evolving into something that… that reminded her of her father, actually, in how she wanted to keep Bill to herself, wanted to possess him—and that was a danger, the danger that she might go too far and make him feel as terrified as she had of her father; and then that love would no longer be a good thing, so having it wouldn’t feel as good.

And then—the blood oath in the field, Stan cutting into everyone’s palms with a bottle that stank of beer. He tried to cut her and the shard broke further, becoming useless in his hand so he dropped the fragments, and Bev looked down at her own smooth and unmarked palm, and Stan’s bloody one. Slowly, with the other Losers watching with a wary stillness of prey animals, she raised Stan’s hand and waited for him to pull back, and when he didn’t, she brought his palm to her mouth.

Eddie was near tears about germs when she let Stan go with an instinctive drag of her tongue over the cut—seal Stanley up, keep him whole, keep him safe—but when Stan turned his hand over to show that the slash was already softening into a pink ragged mark, having bypassed scabbing entirely, Eddie gave her his hand too. They all did. It was the first thing that made that ravenous hunger in her go quiet, go happy—they loved her, and she could feel it, as they let her do the thing that frightened them, as she revealed how her time in the deadlights had changed her, and they kept loving her, and Bill looked in her eyes as she drank from him, pulling harder than she needed to because she knew he’d be the last one. It wasn’t like sex, it wasn’t like food—it was like home, it was like feeling safe for the first time, the knowledge that no matter what she needed, they would give it to her without grudging her it, and she felt that bond settle between the six of them.

Ever since then, she has always known where they are. She can reach out to them, as aware of them as she might be of her own hand with her eyes closed in the dark. They are parts of her.

She thinks she’d give Eddie that too, if he needed it. If it would make him feel as settled and safe as she did. If he asked for it.

Ben says nothing, just keeps stroking her hair. She likes how it feels—just long enough for him to sink his fingers into, but not long enough to tangle. The image of Ben on the couch with this massive orange predator lounging on his lap makes her feel like a pet tiger. A maneater, maybe? There’s blood all over her.

She moves slowly, lifting her head and bracing her elbow so she can shift back up to his neck.

“I’m maybe a little hungry,” she murmurs to him.

His scent deepens as he flushes with arousal; she can feel the blood in his body moving.

“Whatever you want,” he replies, polite as ever.

She pokes out her tongue and prods gently at the soft thin skin of his throat. Her upper jaw aches as her fangs drop, but she doesn’t bite, just laves the salt from him. She thinks about the blood vessels in his lower lip, how he moans when she bites him while they make out like teenagers. That would be appropriate, on his couch after a party. She thinks about his carotid and how drinking from it—the external one under his jaw, careful to be gentle in her punctures—sometimes feels like leaving a hickey, how she can call the blood to just under the surface of his skin before she bites. She thinks about the big femoral arteries in his thighs and how he pants and hides his face when she sucks from him there, making him want, making him wait for her.

Bev nuzzles at the corner of his jaw with the point of her nose. “Are you tired?” she asks.

“A little,” he says. She can smell it on him, the way the day wears on him. She made it clear that she’s far more pleased when he’s honest about these things, that he doesn’t have to worry about being _polite_ with her.

“Should we go to bed?”

“Are _you_ tired?”

She doesn’t sleep the same way anymore. She never loses awareness, just seems to disappear somewhere deep inside herself, hearing sounds around her as though from the bottom of a well. It’s more comfortable than her previous experience at the bottom of a well might lead her to believe. Restful. She doesn’t dream anymore.

“I’m comfy,” she says. She shifts a little. “My boobs hurt.”

This happens sometimes, her nipples stiffening up and aching for no reason. She doesn’t menstruate anymore, but there’s definitely still some kind of cycle with her hormones, giving her the occasional headache or faintness or cravings—for blood, for chocolate, for sex. She and her gynecologist are almost positive that she can’t get pregnant—medical knowledge of female vampires is even slower than medical knowledge of women’s issues—but she has a copper intrauterine device anyway, just to be safe. There are some disturbing statistics about ectopic pregnancy in vampires—look at Mary I of England—and Bev has no time for that.

Ben shifts, chin tucking down so he can look at her from under his long lashes. “Did you want some help with that?”

It’s careful phrasing; sometimes Bev doesn’t want to be touched, or she’s so hungry that she’s afraid if Ben comes near her she’ll maul him. Sometimes he makes her hot compresses out of rice for her to tuck in her bra. Sometimes he kneels for her—and he’s tall enough that, on his knees, he can easily suck at her nipples while she stands.

“Let’s go to bed,” she suggests.

There’s still cigarette smoke clinging to her—Richie knows he should quit, but he says that they help with the nausea from his overwhelming sense of smell, and Bev still likes sitting with him when he has one out on the balcony—so she showers before bed and washes her hair to keep the smell off of Ben’s sheets. She towels off and considers putting on pajamas, denying Ben the immediate pleasure of looking at her naked, making him unwrap her.

But he’s tired. And she’s not starving for it yet.

She hangs her towel and walks back into the bedroom naked. Ben hasn’t turned the lights on, but the hall light comes through the open door and she can see him in tones of yellow and light blue. He’s still shy about sex with the lights on, sometimes, even though her vision is good enough that it doesn’t seem to matter, just throws him into interesting colors like a work of art.

He left a t-shirt and a pair of sweats with a drawstring waist folded for her on the end of the dresser. In case she really wants to go to sleep, or if she’d like to cover up afterwards. The smell of his hands as he smoothed them down and folded them clings to the creases. Ben takes care of his possessions.

“Any better?” he asks. Sometimes the hot water helps.

She prods at one of her nipples. She wasn’t lying: they’re hard and sore for no good reason. “Maybe a little?”

She knows that ice is supposed to reduce swelling, but even if she were into that kind of temperature play, her sense of touch is heightened to the point where the shock of cold on such sensitive nerves would be even more dramatic. Heat feels better. She ignores the folded clothes waiting for her and kneels on the bed, crawling up toward him.

Ben reaches out for her automatically. “How do you—?”

She flops down onto the side of his bed she thinks of as _hers_ , rolling on her back to almost mirror his position on the couch. Her spine thanks her—she doesn’t feel aches and pains so much anymore, but stretches that feel good still feel good. She tucks her hands behind her head and sighs, feeling decadent and magnificent as she pulls the sheets back with her feet so she can tangle her legs in them.

“Like this,” she says.

Ben has taken off his jeans but is still wearing his boxers and sweatshirt. His hands go to the drawstrings of the hood, tentative. “Should I…?”

“Just the sweatshirt for now,” she says. If he still feels like he needs to cover himself, she doesn’t want to put him completely on the spot. She wants him to be thinking about her and him and them, and not feeling exposed.

He pulls the sweatshirt over his head and rolls into the center of the bed, hiding his belly in the bedding as he crawls up her body. He’s still a little leery about putting his full weight on her, as if she could break, so he lies mostly on the bed and rests just a little on her side.

Bev hums in pleasure and tugs the comforter over his back, wrapping him in with her. She likes how it traps the smell of them together; she also likes how the edge of the satin border looks as it slips down Ben’s shoulder. She tucks her hand back under her head and sighs in comfort, breathing in the hot salt and musk scents of anticipation.

He’s polite about it when he starts, tapping gentle kisses on the underside of her breast, tracing his thumb along the lower crease where the swell starts. Bev’s bras don’t leave imprints on her skin; they sit on her like on a mannequin, and her breasts do exactly what they want to do anyway. Sometimes she doesn’t bother with one, unless she wants to hide her nipples or if she’s going to be running and she stuffs them into a compression shirt. But Ben’s touch is always meant to soothe.

“You smell good,” he offers. He’s almost in her armpit, after all.

She smiles. “Thank you.”

She can’t wear perfume anymore—it doesn’t smell right, with her circulation as it is. Sometimes she tries deodorant, but she doesn’t seem to produce her own body odors anymore. Her hair holds scents, though—she chooses her shampoo carefully, and if she hasn’t shaved her armpits she can keep an artificial perfume there. Otherwise it’s usually blood and desire, sometimes revealed when she spreads her legs. If she has sex she can smell it on herself for far longer than any human nose can detect. Even longer if they cuddle afterwards.

He rests his head beside her, on her upper arm, and seems to admire her breast in profile. She lifts her other hand and tucks a finger into the crease between his brows. It’s not an unfamiliar expression on him; they’ve gone to museums and she’s seen him look at sculptures this way.

“Please touch the exhibits,” she quips.

He smiles in response and fits his palm over her nipple, gently massaging her whole breast. The pressure feels good, the heat of his palm. She thinks she’d like to make him massage her one of these days—he’s not strong enough to manipulate her muscles really, she’d have to get something deep tissue for her to really feel it, but his hands on her skin would still feel good. And maybe just being asked to love over her skin like that would work him up.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

She closes her eyes again. She feels _warm_ , her skin heating deliciously under his touch, the comfortable folds of bedding around her bare toes. She shifts her feet a little, enjoying the texture of the sheets, the full body comfort of being in a bed.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “That’s good. Use your mouth on the other one.”

She doesn’t open her eyes, but he gives her plenty of warning. He kisses gently beside her areola first, then rubs his lips over the hardened peak—a strong little spike of sensation, not unpleasant—and then licks gently. Then he covers it with his mouth.

It feels good. Bev has never gotten off much on just her breasts—she’s read that there are people who can have orgasms just from breast- and nippleplay, and that boggles her mind and makes her oddly jealous—but his mouth does soothe some of the ache in her nipples, stirring up some of the want deep in her core. She spreads her legs so she can hook one knee around Ben’s, shifting to try to get him to lie on her properly. He pulls off of her nipple and shifts, lying heavy on her hip, and she tucks her pelvis down so she can grind up into his thigh a little. She keeps it slow, gentle. It reminds her of stirring embers.

Her eyes are still closed, but she can imagine how they must look from overhead, how they would look without the shield of the blanket. It’s almost enough to make her wish for a mirror over the bed. There’s nothing childish or maternal about it—Ben’s definitely giving her a suckjob right now—but she likes the idea of them lying together, of Ben’s broad back, of her own pale shoulders, the side of her body exposed under him.

It reminds her of feeding, a bit. She wouldn’t bite Ben’s nipple—ouch—but she might score his pectoral with her teeth and drink from the slash. Not a neat bite, just enough to raise the sting on his skin and then soothe it with her tongue. The blood-drinking equivalent of just sampling, just tasting because it tastes good, not trying to solve any true hunger.

“I could drink from you like this,” she tells him.

Ben makes a low sound in agreement. She feels it more in his chest than in his mouth on her. The point of his nose brushes the top of her breast as he nods his agreement.

She’d want the left. The one closer to his heart. Not in his body—the heart is more centered in his body than most people believe, putting their hands over their left lungs when they make vows, and Bev became aware of that when she started relying on other people’s circulatory systems to live—but for the symbolism of it. Ben would let her, she knows.

“I bet we look good,” she murmurs, because she likes him to know what she’s thinking about. Before he can dwell on that—appearance makes him self-conscious—she adds, “You can switch sides.”

She slides her hand into his hair and tightens her knuckles just enough that he feels the tug as she gently guides his head over. He has to shift his weight onto his other elbow, leaning across her. She guides his hand up and shows him how she wants him to move his thumb across her right breast, avoiding her nipple as his saliva dries cool on her.

By the time Ben has finished loving her other breast, her body is humming a soft pleased lull of sensation, heat in her body telling her that she’s wet and ready for just about anything. It’s comfortable rather than frantic. It makes her think of fireplaces. The light coming in from the hallway is just perfect, making Ben a dark and welcome shape against the pale relief of the bedding and her own skin.

“I want to ride you,” she tells him.

His breath rushes warm into the valley down her sternum. He pulls off gently to ask, “Now?”

“Now,” she agrees. “Get naked.”

Trial and error taught them that Ben is tall enough that, if he lies on his back while she rides him, she can’t reach the headboard. If she braces herself on his chest, she leaves dark bruises no matter how careful she is—not red and purple, but purple and black that heal into ugly green and yellow. She doesn’t like leaving bruises on Ben—just hickeys, evidence that he’s hers and he likes what she does to him. Rough sex is different.

So he sits up, propped on pillows in a slight recline so she has more room to maneuver and she can grip the headboard behind him. This is his second bedframe since they started dating—he had to replace it after they broke the first one, and he had to upgrade to real wood. If this one gives up, she thinks she’ll insist on giving him some money for a wrought iron one. He wouldn’t let her contribute to buying this one, but if they break it together she won’t give him that choice.

She sits on his thighs, his cock standing up eager in front of her, and checks in on him. She cups his cheek in her hand. “Feeling good?”

His eyes are large and dark, his eyelids heavy, his smile almost drunk. A slice of his face is illuminated in warm yellow from the light behind them. “Yeah.”

“One of these days,” she says. She comes up to her knees and situates herself above him, spreading her thighs and moving her ankles out, trying to decide what will be most comfortable. “We should go to a ski lodge or something. I want to fuck you in front of a stone fireplace on a fur rug.”

He’s alive with tension under her, waiting for her, but he stays very good and still and waits. All he does is turn his face sideways into her upper arm in a gentle nuzzle.

“Does it have to be a fur rug?”

She holds him at the base to keep him steady, then slowly lowers herself down.

“There are ethical furriers,” she says. “Natives in Alaska and Canada, I think.” She’s found some very good old fur coats in secondhand stores—they last forever if you treat them well, and they’re warm, and it’s better that no new animals die in vain.

She sighs a little as the head of him stretches her, shifts her angle a little bit at a faint sting so she can slide down easier. Once she’s open for it she drops down very easily—she’s wet enough that he just sort of glides into her, the spread luxurious enough to make her curl her toes back on the mattress. He’s big, he fills her up, the pressure is good, but it’s the motion that really gets her, and she loves this first slow slide every time.

She spreads her knees a little wider and brings one hand to her clit, rubbing her middle and ring fingers in circles, rocking just gently on him. Ben’s chest rises and falls in response to her movements, his breath coming a little faster when she starts to get close, when she draws her knees in tighter to his sides and grips tighter onto the headboard so she doesn’t hurt his ribs. The control—the staying still because she has to, because she’s strong enough to be careful for him—drives her hotter.

She starts to tighten and she tilts her head back, her knees planted and her hips pushing forward onto him just gently as she comes. The swell of him inside her as she clenches around him seems to shock her cunt a little, every time, startled to be given what it wants before it even has time to want it. Sometimes she makes herself come just with fingers on her clit before she takes him inside, just to heighten the anticipation for it. The pulses come easily but fast. She only has to shift down a little more to provoke the next waves. She can go for more.

Ben’s head is tilted back against the headboard, his eyes closed and his lips parted a little, with her split open on his cock. His hands are fisted in the sheets. She brings her dry hand down to rub at his chest over his heart and he opens his eyes and looks at her, his pupils blown. He’s so hot under her, his sweat trapped between their bodies, his blood pulsing strong as his heart pounds.

“Do you want me to drink before or after you come?” she asks.

He swallows, his throat working. His voice comes out bedroom deep. “Either,” he says. “I don’t mind.”

“Ben,” she says, just sternly enough to wake him up a little.

He throbs a little inside her and he scrunches his face up, taking a deep breath. “Before,” he says, his voice taut now.

She shifts forward, forcing another few weak pulses out of her orgasm, and watches him draw his lower lip into his mouth. She smiles. “You can move a little,” she says, and leans forward so that she can mouth under his ear.

“Oh, thank you,” he gasps.

He knows what _a little_ means—she’s still in charge, she’s still riding, and he’s not allowed to thrust into her properly, but if he can’t help squirming or rocking a little while she drinks from him, it’ll feel good for both of them.

She kisses him on his neck to reward him for being sweet. His breath hitches, and she maps his throat, finding the spots that call to her most. One of his hands creeps to the small of her back, resting on her spine, but she’ll allow that so they can press tighter. She grinds down onto him, testing whether he’s holding her too tight, and his fingers spread wider, distributing pressure rather than increasing it. Good boy. Her body tries to tighten down on him again, but she’s done coming for now. She can feel him aching for it, anticipation coming off him like early morning mist, _please please there_ as her lips glide over his throat.

Some places she wants badly enough that she has to deny herself and move on, because the blood is flowing so fast and strong there she could really hurt him if she drank from him there. Ben doesn’t know this, he just feels the tease; he throbs again, just once, slowly enough that she’s not worried about him coming just yet.

“Here?” she asks, nosing gently at a spot.

“Yes, please,” Ben says, as he would say no matter where she settled.

She pretends to prevaricate over it, pouting her lips and considering, winding him tighter. His thighs push up into her buttocks as he tries to hold himself still. She reaches down and squeezes his flank to make him remember himself; she feels him forcibly relax his muscles, remembering to be good.

“Perfect,” she says, and kisses his neck. His thighs tighten and then release as he lets out a shaky breath, and that’s when she bites him.

Practice makes her smooth. Instead of flinching, Ben moans gently under her mouth, his head relaxing back instead of his body tensing up. It means pleasure instead of pain, or maybe in addition to pain. The punctures are nice and shallow, close to the skin; she licks away what blood wells up immediately before fitting her mouth to it and sucking gently. The hinges of her jaw work for it; her lips purpose; she leaves a faint hickey behind around the bite, but she’s careful. She won’t damage him. She doesn’t need much, and the mark will fade around the marks from the fangs by the morning.

When she swallows, Ben’s pleasure hits her like a shot of moonshine, flowing back into her and weakening her knees, her elbows, tingling until she tightens with him inside her again. Ben pants and shifts his hips a little and the slick slide of it is still a surprise; she’s always far more aware of his arousal than her own until she sees the physical evidence of it.

She pulls her mouth away quickly to ask, “Still feel good?”

“Yes,” Ben sighs. He rocks into her slightly, just the barest movement levered between ankles and hips. It’s allowed. She rocks her weight from side to side to make him stutter in his motion, and he gasps a little.

A trickle of blood runs down his neck like a melting ice cream cone; she licks it up. He’s all butter and salt, satisfying a craving so deep inside of her, so constant, that sometimes she can forget it’s there until it closes like a fist around her. She always forgets how good this feels until she’s in the act again. She thinks that’s how she stops from going mad and trying to take more than what’s offered. It helps her to remember how much Ben likes this before she remembers how much she does.

“I’m gonna clean you up now,” she whispers to him.

Ben nods gently—more blood wells up—and she licks across the bite until it seals over, wet and pink and clean. There’s a natural antiseptic in vampire saliva, and some sort of numbing agent as it speeds the healing process. According to her boys, it doesn’t even itch.

“There you go,” she says. There’s something satisfying about opening Ben up and then closing him up again, safe and secure and hot and happy. “Need to lie down?” He gets faint sometimes, when she draws from his throat.

He shakes his head, his eyes barely open but shiny. “Not yet,” he says—and if he can move his head like that, he must be okay. When he’s really dizzy he doesn’t move at all. “Please, Bev.”

“Hold onto my arms,” she tells him, and watches as he reaches up to grip onto her wrists. It doesn’t feel ensnaring when Ben does it; it’s nice to be the one he can hang onto. And she likes how the bend of his elbows throws his biceps into clear definition.

She feels lazy after their evening of socializing, with blood inside her. She rides him slow, strict with herself but teasing with him. She’ll get there—she might even drag him over with her—and it’s not like her hips and knees get tired. Everything is wet and hot and glowing, Ben’s beautiful soft body thrown into relief in the yellow light from the hall, partially eclipsed by her solid shadow where she blocks the light from touching him. Gorgeous.

She feels the ache in his mouth. He wants a kiss and he’s not sure how to ask for it. Sometimes she feels too much for it to be safe—she’s afraid of hurting him, of bruising his mouth, of chipping his teeth. But she thinks that, at this pace and intensity, she can manage it. They’re not close enough to make out properly, no pushing tongues or straining for it. Instead they have to work for it, lips reaching and soft and hot and slick.

Then Ben tips his head back and starts panting, starting to plateau, to throb. “I’m—I’m close,” he manages, telling her clearly just like she asked him to.

She sits back on his thighs and goes still. She breaks his hold easily, twisting her wrist so she can wrap one hand around his and he can hold onto her like he’s going to need to. The muscles in his ass bunch as he strains for it, and then she feels the sucking burn as the orgasm slips out of his reach. He gasps for it, turning his head as his mouth opens and he cries out in something between pain and desperation, panting, _“Oh, oh, oh.”_

She takes a deep breath, luxuriating in it. Orgasm denial spikes the intensity higher for him and she feels it too; sweat blooms on his body, damp under her ass and thighs where she rests on him.

“That’s good,” she tells him. She runs her thumb over his knuckles. “That’s really good. You’re lovely like this.”

Slowly he settles, dropping out of the danger zone. His eyes are closed again as he catches his breath.

“Okay, now I’m lightheaded again,” he admits.

He said he was tired. She doesn’t want to push him.

“Do you need to lie down?”

“Depends on how much longer you want to go,” he replies.

Bev interprets that as _I’m not in immediate danger of passing out, but if you aren’t going to finish immediately I’m probably going to need to be horizontal for it._

“You should lie down,” she says. Since he’s tired, she won’t bring him to the edge again, but she wants to keep that slow comfortable pace, which means working both of them into a frustration.

She gets up off of him so they can nudge the pillows out of the way and Ben lies down on his back, one pillow under his head for comfort. She sits back down on him—still a nice easy slide, still so hot inside her—and pauses for a moment while she considers to put her hands. Eventually she works out that if she makes Ben hold his hands up in such a way that, if she pushes down too hard on them, she’ll simply push them down onto the mattress and lose her balance in the process, both of them should be pretty safe. She spreads her knees wide to be sure she doesn’t squeeze him. This angle’s going to be a little more athletic, but the bedframe is more likely to survive.

She knows that she can come just from a steady pace, from constant relentless rhythm, and her muscles are happy to cooperate with that in a way a lot of human muscles aren’t.

“You can come this time,” she tells him, and immediately feels him get that much closer, like mercury leaping up into a thermometer.

She steadies herself, her palms flat on his like some bizarre co-meditation, and then rocks a little bit, teasing but also exploring the pressure of him against her walls. She’s stretched and hot where they join together in a way that should mean bruises, but never does. She tilts her head, shifts her weight, and grinds.

“Bev,” Ben says, a warning in his voice.

“I know,” she says.

It’s a feedback loop, sex after feeding. His pleasure drives hers higher. He’s the only person she’s ever managed simultaneous orgasm with, and she wonders if now will be one of them. She lifts up and sits down harder, feels that sweet slide, and tilts her head back in relief. Ben starts to tense. She likes that—likes watching him trying to hold himself back so she can go first. It’s gentlemanly of him, but she just _told him_ that it’s his turn. She doesn’t relent in her pace, letting gravity drop her onto him harder than she would normally dare, and Ben’s abdominal muscles start to strain with how he wants to fold up around her.

“Ben,” she says. He starts to tremble. His chest is heaving. “What did I say?”

He has to take a deep breath to speak, and it still comes out in pants. “That I can—” He swallows. “I can’t hold still, I’m gonna—”

Oh, he’s afraid she doesn’t want him to move. She can assuage that fear easily.

“Give me it,” she orders him. It comes out rawer than she meant it to, too hungry considering she just drank from him. She likes making him lose it.

Bev doesn’t weigh any more than a human woman. Ben’s hips push up into her, bouncing her slightly as he holds tight to her hands, his head bowing, and then he stills and pulses inside her, the rocks of his hips becoming gentle again. The tender little motions stoke her higher and Bev widens her knees again, sitting down harder, grinding, seeking, _yes, yes_. Ben’s answering moan makes her clench down and come, a low noise slipping out of her throat as the relief floods through her. She lets out a heavy breath, relaxing, pushing her hips down against him as she pulses. One of her fangs scratches her lower lip and she idly licks her own blood away, feeling too good to pay much attention to such trivialities.

Ben is winded in the aftermath, head tilting back, pheromones and warm spicy smells coming off of him as he refocuses. His feet slide on the sheets as he shifts and opens his eyes, watching her stretching out her orgasm, letting her decide how much of him she wants to work inside of her.

“Is that good?” he asks. “Do you need more?”

He’d eat her out now if she asked him to, if she decided she wanted a third. She doesn’t need it—it feels good and easy and relaxing, in keeping with the mood of the evening. She’s nice and full and satisfied, wringing the last few pulses of shared pleasure out of him. His breath hitches at the _too much_ but he says nothing.

“This is good,” she replies. “This is really good.” She feels wrapped in the warmth of him, like they might as well be on a rug in front of a fireplace.

She adjusts her position, getting her knees back under her so she can get up off of him. He’s messy when he slides out of her and part of her likes that, likes knowing that as much as she smells like him, he’ll smell like her. When she steps down off the bed, come rolls out of her and down her thigh. She huffs a short laugh through her nose and walks over to the dresser to put on the t-shirt.

It’s one of Ben’s, big and white and flecked with paint. It’s softer than anything she’s ever been able to find or make herself. Time and wear does that, turns something into the shape she needs it to be. When she shakes the shirt out, a pair of her own underwear falls out of the pile, gray and silky. She picks them up, still naked, and holds them out for Ben to see.

“Stealing my underwear now?” she teases.

Ben blinks his eyes open again. “You left them here,” he says innocently. “I washed them.”

“You’re too sweet for your own good,” she tells him. She pulls the shirt over her head and when she emerges from the neck, she finds he’s still looking at her. She sets the underwear back on top of the sweatpants; she’ll need to wash before she puts anything on her lower body. “What kind of juice do you want?” He needs to replenish his blood sugar.

Ben pulls a face. “Can I have milk instead?”

There’s not enough sugar in skim milk to refortify him after she drinks, though she knows that’s the kind of milk he prefers.

“The soymilk?” she asks.

They tend to reserve the chocolate soymilk for after scenes like this. Ben has a sort of idea that he needs to earn little pleasures like sugar and butter and cream. The one time she caught Richie drinking out of the carton, she slapped it out of his hand; he’s one of the few in the group who can take a blow from her like that without serious damage, and it’s _Ben’s_ soymilk, and he needs it.

Ben doesn’t fight her on it; she feels him relaxing to the idea of one more little good thing to round off a good day. “Yeah,” he says.

“You got it,” she tells him.

The shirt is long enough that it covers her hips and she worries a little about getting come on the hem, but it’s one of Ben’s painting shirts, so it’s accustomed to stains and hard wear. She goes out to the kitchen in the dark and pours Ben a big glass of the chocolate soymilk, then pulls a Reese’s peanut butter cup from the basket on the top of the fridge. After the soymilk incident, she had a vague idea about hiding them from Richie when they were getting ready for guests tonight, but she’s pretty sure she saw Mike sneak one earlier. Well, Mike can have one. Not to mention he’s so tall that it’s almost impossible for her to hide anything out of his way.

She gets herself a glass of water and drinks it down in big gulps, standing half-naked in Ben’s kitchen with the fridge door still open so the light shines onto her hips and legs. Ben will be able to see her if he gets up, but she doesn’t hear him moving around in the bedroom or coming out to join her. He did say he was tired. When she finishes her water, she puts the milk carton away and brings Ben his chocolate.

He didn’t put his clothes back on, but he did pull the corner of the comforter over his chest. His hips are still exposed, his softening cock still shiny with come.

“We forgot the blanket,” he says. There’s a blanket that they lay down on the bed before bleeding or sex to shield the everyday bedding, keep it from stains. “I sweated a little.”

Bev isn’t bothered by the idea of lying in his sweat. She likes that his bed smells like him, that when she lies in it she knows where she is and that she’s safe.

“Do you want to change the sheets?” she asks.

He sighs. “Not really?” he says, with a sort of plea in his voice. His exhaustion is weighing heavier in his limbs, making him tired. Changing the sheets is sort of unreasonably athletic for such a mundane task, and she understands his reluctance.

Bev takes him at his word and gives him the glass. He accepts it from her and drinks half of it, then sets it down on the nightstand and leans over to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. Bev offers him the little orange packet, and he has to drag his gaze up from her thighs to her outstretched hand. He smiles at her as he opens it and immediately turns it toward her to offer her one of the two peanut butter cups.

“I’m good,” she says. “I’m going to get a washcloth.”

He pouts theatrically, but when she returns from the bathroom, having scrubbed her thighs and hooked her fingers up inside herself to clean the come out, he has eaten both peanut butter cups. He accepts the already-cooling washcloth and wipes himself clean, then washes traces of chocolate from his fingers. He tosses the dirtied washcloth into the laundry basket, where it hooks on the edge. Bev would have made the shot.

“I don’t think you took that much,” he says.

She walks back over to the dresser and slides her underwear up over her hips, aware of him watching. The sweatpants are oversize, but she likes how they hang off of her when she secures the drawstring, and she likes the feeling of his eyes on her as she puts on his clothes.

“Honestly, I didn’t feel like cutting up an apple,” she replies. “And you did a lot today.” He deserves some pampering.

Ben blushes a little, shrinking back into the pillows. He still gets shy when she praises him for things directly outside the parameters of blood or sex, as though Bev doesn’t watch him come home from classes and set his workload on the desk, dash out to the grocery store, check ingredients with Eddie and Stan and Patty, and make sure everyone has a drink in hand before he sits down.

“It didn’t feel like a lot,” he says. She doesn’t know if he means the blood or the effort he puts into hosting.

“Still tired?” she asks.

He nods, eyes closing thoughtfully. “I feel good,” he decides.

She turns out the light and climbs over him to get to her side of the bed instead of walking around. When she settles, she rolls toward him and he’s already made room for her on his bare chest. She considers kneading at him like he did for her breast, but she decides not to push him any further tonight.

“I think Eddie might ask me,” she says. It seems like what he was working up to tonight.

Ben hums a little to let her know he’s still awake. Sleep smells are coming over him, laundry detergent and clean linen and his own warm body.

“It’ll be easier for him than for me,” she says. “I had no idea what was happening to me.” She had no choice. Eddie will have every choice. She will make Eddie as safe as she can.

“So you’d do it?” Ben asks.

If she was sure that Eddie knew what he was getting into and had considered all the consequences, yes.

“I’d do anything for any of them,” she says. “He might want to talk to you first, though.”

Ben pauses. “Would that be okay?”

She laughs. “For you to talk to the guys about our sex life? Yeah, you have my permission.”

Ben shifts a little, uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t be rude about it,” he says.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she says. She reaches across him to pet his arm and sooth him. “I wasn’t kidding about the ski lodge, though.”

“Someday, I will take you to a ski lodge so you can have your way with me on an ethically-sourced fur rug,” Ben says with all of the solemnity of a vow.

She smiles and continues stroking over his skin. Then, before he can fall asleep, she asks, “Can I tell you something else?”

“’Course,” he says, though he’s definitely nodding off.

“If there were anyone you’d ever want me to share you wish,” she says carefully, “I have sort of a fantasy about drinking from you while someone else gets you off.”

Ben pauses, a lemon-sharp spike of awareness coming back to him. Then: “…You just want me to wreck these sheets, don’t you?”

“I want to see if I could come from it,” she says. “I’d have to time it right.”

“You’re not thinking about this because Eddie might be interested in turning, are you?” Ben asks.

Maybe, but she doesn’t really need another vampire for this particular fantasy. And she doesn’t think that Eddie’s much interested in women, and the idea of his reaction if she propositioned him for group sex is sort of hilarious.

“Nah,” she says. “Honestly, I was thinking Bill.”

Ben’s surprise smells like scratching fingernails over the skin of a lemon and watching the juice aerosolize. She’s still connected to him enough from drinking from him that she feels a little quiver in his stomach, though she doesn’t know if he knows that she can feel it.

To soften any pressure he might be feeling, she adds speculatively, “Mike would probably be into it for the scientific aspect.”

Ben snorts. “If I’m ever up for a threesome, I’ll tell you.”

“That’s all I ask,” she says. She leans up to kiss his lips, and then the tip of his nose. “I like having you to myself, too.”

Ben is quiet as she settles back down on him, but she can feel him still alert under her, the hum of activity in his brain. A sort of thoughtful smell wicks up from him. It smells sweet, like sanded wood. She wonders if she’s crossed a line by bringing up Bill in bed—she wouldn’t have said anything if she weren’t sure he’s outgrown that old childhood jealousy—but then Ben surprises her.

“I don’t understand why you asked if I thought you were horrible,” he says.

Well, that’s a very different train of thought. Sex always makes Bev feel more in control than emotions. The uncertainty she felt earlier, that drove her to ask him, feels further away.

She swallows and says, “I don’t always feel the things I should.”

“Does anybody?” Ben asks.

She considers that. Ben always _seems_ to feel them, but she’s not a mindreader. He has depths that she couldn’t plumb, no matter the chemicals or sense associations or pheromones, or whatever it is she picks up off his skin. That’s fine, she has to remind herself. She doesn’t need to know Ben inside and out, she doesn’t need to _possess_ him. Ben belongs to Ben, and she likes him how he is.

Ben goes on. “I don’t think trying to decide if you’re a good or a bad person is very useful.” His tone is contemplative and gentle, not judgmental. “I think it’s the good or bad things that you do that matter.”

Bev considers that—thinking of the high school track coach who told Ben his problem was that he was _fat in his mind_ , whatever the fuck that meant. Ben won that one, he beat the man, but he never got the apology he earned. Richie was ready to run the man down and Bev would have gone with him, but Ben said that he wanted to be done with the matter, and so they talked Richie down.

“Why do you have to be so reasonable?” she asks.

He gives a sleepy comfortable sigh. “Just raised right,” he says, some of the Midwest coming out in his voice.

“Ayuh,” she replies, meeting him with Maine, and laughs. “I’ll have to call Arlene and thank her.”

“She loves you.” He yawns. “She sent me a sweetgreen gift card for Halloween.”

Bev’s mom used to bring home fries from the diner sometimes. She wouldn’t think to send Bev a card for as insignificant a holiday as Halloween. They don’t talk much, except around Christmas. It’s not the kind of care that Bev needed from her, and now she doesn’t need it at all. Ben’s mother sends him cards addressed to _Benjamin + Beverly_ , implicitly including her in the little family unit, even though they don’t live together. Bev likes to look at her handwriting, at the little plus sign and the way the trail of the pen almost turns into a figure four.

“You feel like sweetgreen?” she asks. Vegetables don’t do too much for her, but if he has money for a certain place, she tends to go with him if it’s what he really wants.

He sighs a little again, his eyes closing in the dark. “I was thinking maybe during classes this week. I’m not gonna make you eat lettuce.”

“Thank you,” she says, smiling.

“You’re welcome,” he replies. She hooks one leg over his and he spreads his thighs a little, making more room for her. “Feel better?”

“I think,” she replies.

“Good,” he says. “Let’s go to sleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading; you can find me on my writing tumblr @tthael or on twitter @IfItHollers.


End file.
